Learn all about the Contacts app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch - the standard iOS application for storing information such as phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, and much more, for your friends, family, co-workers, and miscellaneous contacts.

Say Hello to the Contacts App

You’ve been learning about gestures and home screens and iCloud, but so far you haven’t actually used any of the productivity apps on your new iPad. That’s about to change. The best way for you to learn to use your iPad is to actually do something, and that means opening apps. I’ll start you out slow by introducing you to the Contacts app, the standard iOS application for storing information such as phone numbers, addresses, birthdays, and much more, for your friends, family, co-workers, and miscellaneous contacts.

Note

If you own an iPhone, you’re probably already quite familiar with the Contacts app. The iPad and iPhone versions of the Contacts app work in an identical manner, so it’s quite possible you may find your Contacts already synced from your iPhone to your new iPad via the iCloud service discussed in Chapter 3, “iCloud and Settings.” If that’s the case, you may still want to read through this chapter because it will show the Contacts app as displayed on the iPad’s screen, and you might discover a feature or two you didn’t know were available.

Take a look at Figure 4.1, which shows the icon for the Contacts app. For the remainder of this chapter, we’ll be working in the Contacts app in Landscape view, but the Contacts app also works just fine in Portrait view.

Your contacts list running down the left side of the screen will not look like the one in Figure 4.2. Probably the only contact you and I will share at the start is the Apple Inc. listing—Apple has provided its 800 number, web address, and corporate address for you.

If you’ve never used the Contacts app before, you’ll probably have the Apple Inc. listing and nothing else. (iPhone users may see their contacts listed here, especially if iCloud has been enabled—refer to Chapter 3.)

Running down the left side of the screen, you’ll see an index of letters and the # symbol. Unless you have dozens contacts in the list, tapping a letter or the # symbol won’t do anything; however, they are provided for jumping to the letter of either a contact’s last name (if you provided one) or first name. For example, take a look at Figure 4.2 and you’ll see that I have five contacts entered using only their first names. They are each listed under the letter that corresponds to their first name.

I also have a contact entry for John Smith, but because he has a last name, his contact information is filed under the letter S, not J.

But that’s enough about my contacts. I want to walk you through adding a new contact to the Contacts app.